Help me to put my ex-OM to the test

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-02-2003
Help me to put my ex-OM to the test
3
Tue, 10-26-2004 - 10:46am
I need to know how my ex-OM feels and if he is just playing me or if he really cares. I am going through a divorce and ex-OM doesn't want to get involved in it. He knows that he is part of the reason that I am getting divorced. We used to talk about a future together, but nothing definite. He is single and dating. He really doesn't know how to be there for me emotionally. He has always been like this with any woman that he has been married to. He tried to cheer me up with little things that he would do or say in the beginning of my divorce proceedings. He never wanted to talk about the divorce, but he would come around at work and tease me or pick at me to cheer me up. He knew that I was hurting and this was the only way that he knew how to respond to me. Now that the divorce is getting close to being over, he is pulling away again. I can't stand this any longer. I don't want to ask him how he feels and if we have a future because I already know what he'll say. He'll say that he doesn't know. I also know that he is scared of marriage because he has had two failed marriages and the wives left him. I am sure that he probably figures that now that the divorce is close to being over that I am going to want a committment from him. He was so attentive in the beginning of the divorce and now he is distancing himself. I am tired of this and want to know his true feelings. Since i know that I won't get a straight answer from him, should I enforce NC? Should I go on with my life and pretend that I don't have feelings for him and see what he does? Please don't be harsh and tell me to forget him. I just want to know so I can get on with my life.
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-02-2003
Tue, 10-26-2004 - 10:56am
By the way, here are MY feelings as to how he is acting. I believe that deep down there are still feelings for me. I believe that he is very confused. I believe that he cares and that he wants me, BUT his past experience with relationships has scared him. He doesn't want to have to make a committment to me and he knows that eventually that is what I want. He doesn't want to take that BIG step to get me, but he also doesn't want anyone else to have me. He knows that I adore him and love him like no other. He doesn't want to lose that. Part of this is ego. I build him up and make him feel good. So I believe that this is a combination of emotions and fear and that is why I can't get a straight answer out of him. That is just my thoughts being from how I know him. After all, I have loved him for the last 6 years.
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-02-2000
Tue, 10-26-2004 - 11:07am
Southern,

I'm not going to say you should just forget him, although perhaps that is what you need to do. I don't know that. But I will say this. At the least, you should just try and shelve the matter with him right how. You say in your post that he's going to think you want a committment from him. Well don't you? Isn't that what this is all about? Don't you want to know whether you're going to be with him, and therefore, isn't that about committment? Obviously, he's not interested in that at this moment, or he'd be pursuing it. I would just focus on you and leave the rebound man on his own. If it's meant to be, it will be. But I would also consider this...he's been married twice before. Does this sound to you like an ideal candidate for a future? I'd be hesitant if I were you. But that's just me.

silly

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-16-2004
Tue, 10-26-2004 - 12:59pm
It's kind of hard for most of us here to answer questions about how to create a FUTURE with an AP, when most of us are here because we are trying to make our AP a thing of the PAST. But I think you will get the answers you are looking for when your divorce is final... If when you are single and he is single he is still distancing himself from you, you might want to check out the book "He's Just Not That Into You." (I don't mean that in a smart-ass way, either; commitment-phobe or not, I think you have to consider the possibility that if he is not jumping all over the fact that you're available, he might just not be that into you.)

Read the Publisher's Weekly description of the book: "It’s a classic single-woman scenario: you really like this guy, but he’s giving mixed messages. You make excuses, decide he’s confused, afraid of commitment. Behrendt, a former executive story editor for Sex and the City—and a formerly single (now happily married) guy who knows all the excuses—provides a simple answer: he’s just not that into you. Stop kidding yourself, let go and look for someone else who will be. After all, as Behrendt sensibly puts it, "if a (sane) guy really likes you, there ain’t nothing that’s going to get in his way." If you’re not convinced yet, by all means read this smart, funny and surprisingly upbeat little book, full of q’s and a’s covering every excuse woman has ever made to avoid admitting to herself that a man just wasn’t that smitten with her."